I remember pulling my little blue honda civic over to the side of that road and ugly cried harder than I had ever before.
It felt as if everything in my life came crashing down all at once.
I was heartbroken, my entire family got COVID really bad and I couldn't see them for a month, I felt like my friends didn't like me anymore, I felt so shamed and my anxiety was at all time high making my body weaker than I had ever experienced.
I drove to my 7am shift that day and tried my very best to hold my smile together. As I walked in, tear stained face and eyes puffy, I drank my iced americano and shut up and sucked it in for hours.
I was anything but myself last january. I was exhausted of feeling guilty for so many things. Every little thing set me off and i felt lonelier by each passing day.
There were so many things I have kept to myself that happened that month that to this day i cry over how sad i was. I began drinking in my car like it would make me feel stronger, I was sad and I became this angry person who I swore I'd never become. I was going through the motions and I let it overtake all of me.
I felt so unlovable and so alone.
There was a day I remember so clearly and it's something that i think about a lot.
It must have been weeks into the new year, but it was a cloudy day and I was working at the coffee shop and balancing six undergrad classes trying to graduate.
I was getting ready to leave work when my manager pulled me to the back office and sat me down. I remember feeling weightless and tired. He looked me in the eyes and asked me, "how are you doing, jess? like really doing be honest."
as I tried to hold back my tears, I simply said, "i'm holding it together." and I can still hear him tell me the words, "you know the world is falling apart, but the difference between you and the world is you have Christ. and that makes the heartache a little sweeter. don't forget that."
we talked awhile that day before I left for my shift and he told me to think about what i needed to do to take care of my mental health.
as I walked out of that office, my co worker came up to me and hugged me. she didn't say a word, she just hugged me and that had to be one of my favorite things.
It was the first time in awhile I felt seen. I felt as if my work place was more than just a coffee shop I went to every morning, but it was a place where I was surrounded by people who actually cared and noticed that I wasn't myself.
As I walked out to my car, I broke down.
The next week was when I decided to leave. It was the moment I knew I had to learn how to heal from anxiety and how to be myself again.
I went back into work and told my manager that I needed time to find myself again and when I thought he wasn't going to let me take so much time off work, he just said to go do it.
My last day of work before leaving to nashville, I got my paycheck and my manager and owner prayed over me. I think that was the sweetest thing anybody has done for me. and when they both finished, they both looked me in the eyes and said, "i hope you find yourself, jess. I hope you come back so strong."
and that next day I got onto that plane and promised myself I wouldn't come back to LA until I was me again.
Dolly Parton says, "find yourself and do it on purpose." and i have always adored that quote because it is so true.
to find yourself means to dig into the messy parts of your heart, to learn how to love the pockets you've never loved and how to be unapologetic about who you are and who God made you to be.
and i did that.
I spent over a month leaning into who I was called to be with no noise and where nobody really knew anything I was going through. I began to find the light and I had to learn how to cope with my anxiety in a way that was new to me. I had to start a journey to health and love myself to the point where nothing nobody said could hurt me anymore and I couldn't hurt my own self with guilt and shame.
I spent every morning in coffee shops around the city, I walked through downtown and let the cool air help me feel again. I had dinner with my best friends every night at their table and we talked about our days at the end of the night. With each passing day, I was healing without even really noticing it.
I think that was my proudest moment of last year. Picking myself up from the ground and making that promise to myself that I would find the woman I longed to be.
I remember getting back to LA, going back to work, I was asked, "did your trip do for you what you prayed for?" and i replied back, "it outdid my prayers tenfold."
I'll never let go of how kind my coworkers and managers were to me back then. They were Jesus to me when i didn't want to even be associated with Jesus.
and that's how we are a lot of times with God... we ignore him and he still pulls up a chair for us at His table and lets us be until we are ourselves again.
and i want to tell you tonight that the little things matter. The little words you speak over someone or the text you send, the phone call you make, the letter you write.
it matters.
I'm trying to be kinder this new year. I am trying to be better and a woman who keeps going when she wants to back down.
Life wasn't magically easier when I hopped off that plane at LAX but it did clear the clouds. It did show me the sun and the goodness of the Lord and how it could only keep getting better, keep healing.
eventually my family got better from being sick and my heartache began to dissipate into the distance and I smiled for real and I laughed like I meant it.
I am so thankful for the trenches God takes us through. John 13:7 says, "you don't know what I am doing; but later you will."
it's true.
Trust, my love. Keep trusting because one day you will tell the story of how you fought like hell and how you overcame the things the enemy tried to keep a hold on you.
This January is nothing like last year and i praise God for how far i've come.
keep believing, my love. now..go find yourself.
XO. J.
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